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Monday, July 4, 2016
The Real Value of Law School Rankings
Every year, the Law School Admissions Council offers up a tally of the top law schools in the U.S. and the GPAs and LSAT scores it took to get admitted. This chart immediately evolves into a point of worship for certain law school hopefuls. I know students who picked their school exclusively based on the number of junior associateships offered by BIGLAW for each university.

Jobs at top firms all look pretty similar. Big paychecks, prestige, relentless billable requirements, unforgiving social commitments and quick burnout. Which is exactly what some law students are looking for. If you scope the internet, law school begins and ends with the Top 14, despite the fact that fewer than 10% of all law students will land at these behemoths.

In the real world, there is a need for lawyers that is far more expansive than the insular world of big law. For a start, there are over 200 law schools across the United States. For every professional athlete or multinational corporation that hires a Big Firm, there are countless ordinary citizens who need a lawyer to help them file for divorce or write a will. That just doesn't make for interesting internet fodder.

The biggest elephant in the room for anyone that's graduated from law school and practiced law is the enormous skills gap between the two. Law schools-even (and perhaps especially) the top ones- are notorious for the total absence of practical training within curriculums.

Which doesn't mean that a Yale grad isn't likely to succeed. What it does mean is that many lawyers don't become good buy ambien in bangkok at what they do until they’ve practiced for awhile and earned a reputation. At that point, almost no one will care what your LSAT score was.

I'm not discounting the incredible value of prestige. What I do wish was that the discourse surrounding law school admission could free itself from the constraints of percentiles and US News & World Report rankings. These tokens represent a symbolically important aspect of law school admission, but barely scratch the surface of at-large legal practice.

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